


For Behold, Darkness

by tossedwaves



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28177665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tossedwaves/pseuds/tossedwaves
Summary: Elan Morin Tedronai had wanted the end of civilization. But was this really the way to achieve it?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	For Behold, Darkness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tedronai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tedronai/gifts).



Elan had not known what he was doing when he declared in front of the entire Hall of Servants that he believed in the Dark One’s cause. 

He wouldn’t take it back, of course, but he really hadn’t known what he was getting into. Had Lews Therin or Barid Bel been there, he never would have admitted that out loud. 

It was one thing to imagine things from the comfort of one’s room. It was quite another to live them out. Even the most clearsighted person missed things sometimes. 

Elan Morin Tedronai had always known what he wanted, what everything meant. He had never jumped into anything in his life without weighing all the possible consequences. 

Elan was a philosopher, not a politician. He didn’t make rash decisions. The first centuries of his life had been spent weighing the consequences of consequences. Every move he made was carefully planned to achieve the best result. 

His declaration hadn’t been a calculated political move. Elan hated dishonesty, intellectual dishonesty most of all. 

He had done his calculations and his weighing. And in order to obtain the world he wanted to see, declaring fealty to Shai’tan had just seemed like the natural next step. Once he knew the move that would best reflect his goals, how could he do anything but act on it?

His speech in the Hall of Servants had been the culmination of many years of contemplation. 

He still didn’t understand why it had received such a reaction. Had no one else realized? They had all been acting parts in a play, pushing the wheel of time inexorably forward as nothing ever changed. 

Why shouldn’t he hope for a change? What was so great about what they had, anyway?

They called him the Betrayer of Hope. 

Elan had never quite understood. What hope had there been to betray? He had just exposed the flaws in their civilization. They had always wanted to hear his thoughts before. Tedronai, they had once named him. Now that he no longer agreed with their foolish ideas, he was Ishamael. 

Anyone who realized what he had and did not do the same was just intellectually dishonest. They wanted to live a lie, and it sickened him. If hope meant a desperate clinging to tradition, then he wanted no part of it. 

He was Ishamael. He had been called worse things in his life. 

When others finally started flocking to the Dark One’s banner, it hadn’t been for reasons that Ishamael understood. Who would use such an opportunity to just seize more power?

Didn’t they realize that all titles were irrelevant? They wanted to build a new world in their image, creating new creatures of destruction and planning what they would do with the world of ashes they created. Why wouldn’t they want to be immortal? Power in perpetuity was always an irresistible draw for fools. 

But new worlds were impossible. There was only one world, and its path had been set millennia ago. They were as ants trying to stop a boulder from rolling down a hill. It would never stop; it would only crush them. 

Everything they had ever done was futile. 

Immortality would only make that more obvious. What had immortality gotten him, so far?

No, he really hadn’t known what he was getting into.

* * *

The collapse of their world had come, but it was not yet at an end. Ishamael was still there, playing his part. How much longer would it take?

Ishamael was currently arranging the end of what people now called civilization. 

These so-called Ten Nations were lacking even the basics of what someone from the Age of Legends would have expected. They even called it the Age of Legends, like it had been some sort of mythical and perfect era—didn’t they realize that nowhere and no time was perfect? The same problems just repeated themselves. 

It had been so easy for Ishamael to bring forth the agents of their destruction. A whisper here, an army there, how could they have ever managed to combat him? 

Ishamael knew exactly what was needed to bring forth despair. It was what he knew best, after all. 

And yet they still fought. 

He wondered why they struggled so hard to keep their measly livelihoods. How did they find something worth fighting for?

They would only die, over and over and over again. The wheel of time spat out millions of people who would never amount to anything, who strove to keep going underneath a heel that crushed them again and again. 

They had never had a hope in this world. Their destruction served a purpose to the wheel of time, after all. 

At least the Dark One’s form of destruction brought freedom. They would never have to experience pain or despair ever again. 

Every day brought Ishamael new ideas. It almost felt like an intellectual exercise. What could he do next to prepare for the final end? The mortals kept struggling, but their efforts were futile. He always won, in the end. And, this time, it really would be the end. 

How much should he push, to ensure things ended for good?

It was a shame that none of them ever put up a good fight. If one of them managed to finally kill him, well, Ishamael really wouldn’t have minded. 

But, ultimately, each new person proved just as hopeless as the last. How could he have ever expected anything different? There was nothing new under the sun. 

If it sometimes felt like Ishamael’s role was equally scripted, he didn’t dwell on such thoughts. At least he was working towards something—the end of everything. 

One day, this would all be over. Lives of pain, of futility, would be forever in the past. 

And Ishamael, unlike everyone else, would have made a difference. No one else understood, but that was okay. One day they would realize that he was right. 

(Wasn’t he?)

* * *

(Ishamael never quite realized that perhaps his declaration was just another part to play. That maybe his decisions had never been quite as free as he had believed.)

(The Dragon always needed an antagonist, after all.)


End file.
